Panera

In the restaurant business, the conventional wisdom used to be that attracting young adults was the surest road to profit, because people invariably tended to dine out less as they got older. But boomers, an iconoclastic generation that’s refuted so many other age stereotypes, are upending the old equation. A recent study by NPD Group shows that visits to commercial food establishments – both restaurants and “snack” establishments such as coffee shops – by customers 65 and older have grown nearly …